In March I traveled to a large dairy farm near a town called
Gooloodong in NSW Australia to take a look at a computer system which
maintains a database of the livestock. It's built around a VIA EPIA
mainboard. When I got there I realized that the farmer was bringing in
heifers - cows that haven't had calves yet. They were monitoring their
cycles in order to get them pregnant so that they could start producing
milk. "So, how many bulls per heifer?" I asked Mick the farmer. "Just
the one!" he said. I looked around at the pen filled with probably fifty
heifers, impressed at the bull's stamina. Mick grabbed a glove and
pulled it right up to his armpit, covering his whole arm. "Yep just
one," he said "me!". And so my introduction to AI on a dairy farm began.
And yes, I filmed it. There is some good information in this video about
the EPIA based system as well as - well let's just say you shouldn't
watch it if you get queasy easily!